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The pyboard is a compact and powerful electronics development board that runs MicroPython. It connects to your PC over USB, giving you a USB flash drive to save your Python scripts, and a serial Python prompt (a REPL) for instant programming. Works with Windows, Mac and Linux.

MicroPython is a complete re-write of the Python (version 3.4) programming language so that it fits and runs on a microcontroller. It includes many optimisations so that it runs efficiently and uses very little RAM.

MicroPython runs bare-metal on the pyboard, and essentially gives you a Python operating system. The built-in pyb module contains functions and classes to control the peripherals available on the board, such as UART, I2C, SPI, ADC and DAC.

There are 3 main ways to control the pyboard:

REPL: Connecting to your PC via USB, the board appears as a USB virtual comms port (CDC VCP) and you can use any serial program to connect and get a Python REPL prompt. This allows you to instantly type and execute Python commands, just like you would when running Python on your PC. You can also redirect the REPL to any of the UARTs on the pyboard.

Remote script: You can change from REPL to raw REPL mode by sending ctrl-A, and then in raw REPL mode you can send an arbitrary Python script to the board for it to execute immediately. A Python script is available which makes using this mode very simple: you just run python pyboard.py script_to_run.py and this will executescript_to_run.py on the pyboard, returning any output.

From file: The pyboard has a small, built-in filesystem which lives in part of the flash memory of the microcontroller. It also has an SD card slot if you want to extend the available storage. When you connect the pyboard to your PC, it appears as a USB flash storage device and you can access (mount) the internal filesystem and the SD card this way. If you copy a Python script to the filesystem and call it main.py then the board will execute this script when it starts up. This way you can run scripts without being connected to a PC.

Main features of the hardware:

STM32F405RG microcontroller

168 MHz Cortex M4 CPU with hardware floating point

1024KiB flash ROM and 192KiB RAM

Micro USB connector for power and serial communication

Micro SD card slot, supporting standard and high capacity SD cards

3-axis accelerometer (MMA7660)

Real time clock with optional battery backup

24 GPIO on left and right edges and 5 GPIO on bottom row, plus LED and switch GPIO available on bottom row